Prunus - Botany

Botany

Members of the genus can be deciduous or evergreen. A few species have spiny stems. The leaves are simple, alternate, usually lanceolate, unlobed, and often with nectaries on the leaf stalk. The flowers are usually white to pink, sometimes red, with five petals and five sepals. There are numerous stamens. Flowers are borne singly, or in umbels of two to six or sometimes more on racemes. The fruit is a fleshy drupe (a "prune") with a single relatively large, hard-coated seed (a "stone").

Within the rose family Rosaceae, it was traditionally placed as a subfamily, the Amygdaloideae (incorrectly "Prunoideae"), but was sometimes placed in its own family, the Prunaceae (or Amygdalaceae). More recently, it has become apparent that Prunus evolved from within a much larger clade now called subfamily Amygdaloideae (incorrectly "Spiraeoideae").